For some, the piano is the instrument of instruments. Here are ten good reasons why.
40-minute mix with works by Charlemagne Palestine, Graeme Revell, Henry Cowell, Johanna Magdalena Beyer and others, composed between 1912 and 2017.
Featured cover art: The Piano Music Of Henry Cowell
Listen also to
Synthesis – Approaching a New Instrument
Playlist ‘Ten Magic Pianos’
Johanna Magdalena Beyer – Sonatina in C: III. Andante
late piano work by the German-American composer, who also pioneered electronic music (1943, New World Records)
Henry Cowell – Aeolian Harp
one of the first piano pieces to feature extended techniques; Henry Cowell’s method of the string-piano is played by sweeping and plucking the strings inside the instrument (1923, Smithsonian Folkways)
Cornelius Cardew – Father Murphy
based on a song of the Irish uprising of 1798 (1974, Cramps Records)
Cyril Scott – Poppies
composition linked to a poem (1912, Muza)
Egidija Medekšaitė – Textile 1
investigating the connection between textile patterns and musical structures (2017, Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre)
Graeme Revell – Countess Saladine
interpreting Adolf Wölfli’s mandala piece from 1911 (1986, Mute)
David Shea – Trance
piano work based on methods of composing electronically (2016, Room40)
Michael Harrison – Theme Of The Garden Of Avalon (2/3)
played on the Harmonic Piano in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York (1990, New Albion)
Charlemagne Palestine – One + Two + Three Fifths in the Rhythm Three Against Two, For Piano – One Fifth
variation of tones, intervals, overtones, and rhythms elicited from a Bösendorfer piano (1973, Alga Marghen)
Sun Ra – Haverford Impromptu #1
free jazz pioneer playing a Fender Rhodes Electric Piano (1980, Enterplanetary Koncepts)